Category: Albuquerque & New Mexico

The Wayward Wind

This was first posted here two years ago today, but seemed timely. A new Smokey Bear balloon was constructed after this incident and is in this year’s Fiesta.

One of the reasons NewMexiKen likes looking up at balloons, but doesn’t ever intend to be a passenger. If God intended for us to fly he’d put us in 757s.

The final day of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta ended with high drama Sunday when a balloon became entangled in a radio tower, forcing the pilot and two young passengers to shimmy most of the way down the nearly 700-foot-tall structure.
Balloon.jpg
Bill Chapel, 69, of Albuquerque, was piloting the Smokey Bear balloon when winds blew into the radio tower near the balloon fiesta park.

“All you can do is grit you teeth and hold on to your passengers and prepare them for the impact,” he said.

The hot-air balloon’s canopy — shaped like the face of the famous bear that warns children against forest fires — got wrapped up around the triangular-shaped tower, leaving its gondola resting up against the structure and Chapel and his young passengers, Aaron Whitacre, 10, of Tucson, Ariz., and Troy Wells, 14, of Rio Rancho, stranded.

“I hung onto the tower with all my strength, and I got them calmed down,” Chapel said.

The pilot said he didn’t need to tell the boys what to do: “They climbed down the tower and I followed them.”

The trio made their way slowly down the tower’s interior ladder.

From AP.

The radio station, KKOB, shut down its 50,000 watt transmitter during the emergency. Damage to the tower is estimated at $10,000. The Smokey Bear balloon was destroyed.

Two for Tea

An article from The New York Times on the return of jaguars to New Mexico and Arizona — Gone for Decades, Jaguars Steal Back to the Southwest. The fence along the border will put an end to this nonsense.

And some background about Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, which opened 71 years ago tonight — Happy Birthday, Porgy.

“Summertime” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” “I Got Plenty o’ Nothin” “It Ain’t Necessarily So” — good stuff.

The Sun Is Out

And the balloons are up.

Albuquerque got an inch-and-a-half of rain yesterday, but it’s clearing out this morning and the weather looks favorable for the next few days of ballooning.

More rain is likely this weekend, but the weather is always good for fiesta-ing.

Best line of the day, so far

“If you really want to get a taste of it, come out and go with us.”

— Mike Krepfl, owner of AAA Pumping Service, which provides 401 porta-potties to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. He’s offering a free ride-along if you want to look into the business. From story in The Albuquerque Tribune.

Money quote: “[Fiesta field manager Sam] Baxter says he received a letter from a lady from the East Coast ‘thanking us immensely for providing a little ledge [in the porta-potty] for her purse,’ not knowing what the urinal was for.”

This evening’s events have been canceled after hard rains again this afternoon. [1.47 inches of rain Monday officially.]

News Developments

North Korea tests nuclear device, but more importantly events at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta were rained out again this morning.

Sunday evening’s balloon glow was restricted to a candle glow — burners, no actual balloons (in balloon speak, the envelopes weren’t inflated). The fireworks show went on as scheduled, though. I saw them from my plane on approach.

Sunday morning’s events and Saturday night’s America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race launch had been canceled as well.

Ten Reasons I Don’t Heart The Balloon Fiesta

‘Burque Babble reposts from last year his “Ten Reasons I Don’t Heart The Balloon Fiesta.”

It’s good stuff, especially if you know Albuquerque and the Fiesta — and have a sense of humor about them. A favorite excerpt:

#7: Those 9:30 P.M. teasers for the local 10:00 TV news that attempt to tie everything back to Albuquerque and those stinkin’ balloons….

THIS IS TOM JOLES, Tonight at 10, FIRST ON FOUR, Six U.S. Soldiers Are Killed In Iraq, find out local reaction tonight from Balloon Fiesta Park … Plus, weatherman Larry Rice inexplicably stands out LIVE at a darkened Balloon Fiesta Park to tell us how Typhoon Brittany off the coast of Japan might impact winds at tomorrow morning’s launch.

Driving 350 Miles, Traveling 400 Years

America’s internal compass has historically pointed westward. But out in New Mexico, where thunderstorms can be seen for miles and eternity feels like a next-door neighbor, history has traveled on a northward road. It is El Camino Real, the Royal Road, once the footpath of Indians and officially blazed in the 16th century by Spanish conquistadors — a hellish 1,800-mile trail extending from civilization in Mexico City to the wild, remote reaches of the “tierra nueva” north of Santa Fe.

From an essay about El Camino Real, the Royal Road, first noted here three years ago.

Moving West

Traveling through, Bitch Ph.D. likes Albuquerque. She begins:

“Here I sit in The Flying Star Cafe in Albuquerque (highly recommended, btw. The french toast has bananas and strawberries and cream and cinnamon, and the bacon is applewood and the orange juice is fresh-squeezed, and there’s free internet access), and it’s sunny outside and trending warm…”

Lovely to Look At

View from Taos

Farr Feed had this great photo of the season’s first evidence of snow — this from Taos, so I’m thinking that is New Mexico’s highest point, Wheeler Peak, 13,161 feet (4,011 m).

Click photo to see larger version. Click here to visit its author.

A true test to see if someone is a genuine New Mexican — they pronounce Taos with only one syllable.

[Just as genuine southern Californians know that Tijuana is three syllables, not four.]

Letter to My Senator

Senator Bingaman:

Please, I beseech you, there are times to keep a low profile, and I respect that is your style, but this is not one of those times. Assuming that you are in fact opposed to torture, you have an obligation, in my opinion, to speak out. As Thomas Paine wrote more than 230 years ago: “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorius the triumph.”

All you have to do, in order to become a leading national figure among the Credomats over the weekend, is to get out there and say something like this: “Torture and ‘extraordinary rendition’ are contrary to everything this nation stands for, every tradition of liberty and the rule of law for which our brave fighting men and women have died over the past 230 years. This administration’s craven and reckless policy will not only endanger our servicemen and women overseas, all for the sake of ‘interrogations’ that have gotten us precisely zero useful intelligence in five years, as we have tortured mentally ill detainees whose pain-induced babblings have led us on one wild goose chase after another; it will also erode our moral fiber and damage us irreparably in the fight against totalitarianism and political extremism around the world. No one who proposes such a policy is fit to lead this land of the free, and the political party that supports such a policy, and such a leader, can rightly be called anti-American.”

There! It’s that easy. You say a bunch of true things, you defend your country’s best political traditions, you remind millions of your fellow citizens that your party opposes the other party on some core issues, and you get some face time. It’s a win-win-win-win.

The second and third paragraph above are not my own, but they represented my sentiments exactly, so I have sent them to you as mine. It’s time to speak out. You owe it to your constituents, many of whom are simply heartbroken at this turn of events.

Sincerely,

[The language in the second and third paragraphs is from Le Blog Bérubé.]

Madrid

Sunset Magazine selected Madrid, New Mexico, as one of “The West’s best shopping streets” — True grit, great treasures.

There is really only one street in Madrid, in case you wondered.

Other best shopping in the west:

Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Los Angeles
San Francisco, the Richmond and Hayes Valley
Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood
Silver Lake in Los Angeles
Portland’s Pearl District

The runners-up included two in Santa Fe, Santa Fe’s Guadalupe District and Santa Fe’s Railyard.

Voting Today

Shall the Albuquerque Public School District issue $351,000,000 of general obligation bonds to erect, remodel, make additions to and furnish; school buildings within the district, to purchase or improve school grounds, to purchase computer software and hardware for student use in public schools, and to provide matching funds for capital outlay projects funded pursuant to the Public School Capital Outlay Act?

Yes or No?

Those are the exact words of the measure, copied from the sample ballot.

NewMexiKen thinks there should be another measure requiring “semicolon training” at the clerk’s office. Why is that semicolon in there? Why didn’t someone proofread the ballot?

Ko’oe Esther

“Her American Indian name is P’oe Tswa, or Blue Water, but many knew her as Ko’oe Esther, or Aunt Esther.

“She spent much of her childhood living with her grandparents and traveling back and forth in a covered wagon to visit her parents.

Esther Martinez“She was a major conservator of the Tewa language, teaching her native language from 1974 to 1989 at schools in Ohkay Owingeh, formerly known as San Juan Pueblo.

“She also helped translate the New Testament of the Bible into Tewa and compiled Tewa dictionaries for pueblos that have distinct dialects of the language…”

Last week she “was honored along with 11 other folk and traditional artists for being named a 2006 National Heritage Fellow, the nation’s highest honor for such artists, the NEA said in a news release. The fellowship includes a one-time award of $20,000.”

Saturday night, as Esther Martinez was nearing home on the return from the awards ceremony in Washington, an apparently intoxicated driver crossed the center line and collided with the Dodge Dakota in which she was riding with her daughters.

She died at the scene. She was 94.

Above quotations and information from story in The New Mexican.

This Is So Cool

The temperature, that’s what’s so cool. It was 45º this morning at Casa NewMexiKen. Almost turned the fireplace on.

Near 40º expected tonight.

That said, the days are absolutely stunning as it finally begins to dry out — at least until what’s left of tropical storm Lane throws some moisture our way later in the week. Highs near 80º, nary a cloud in sight.

Fore!

There’s a New Lawman in Town

Bill Richardson has a new television commercial for his run to be reelected governor of New Mexico. Something a little lot different.

NewMexiKen thinks politicians should be required to run on their own record or positions. And they shouldn’t be permitted to run ads discussing their opponents, freedom of speech notwithstanding. Cut out the negativity I say.

Richardson is certainly running on his own record here. But has he trivialized the issues?

I think it’s fun, it’s positive and it doesn’t trivialize the issues any more than any other 30 second ad. What do you think?

Link via Steve Terrell.

Science fiction

According to Zillow.com, the estimated value of Casa NewMexiKen has risen 60% since spring.

I’m not believing it, but I’m open to offers.

(No house on my street of 27 has been listed for sale since I bought mine in 1999. Some have been sold privately I’m told.)

Taking the train to the movies

Rail Runner

NewMexiKen finally got around to seeing An Inconvenient Truth today. It’s very good and very important; go see it. Fittingly, we commuted to the downtown theater where the film is playing in a different way.

New Mexico’s new commuter rail is running this weekend for the New Mexico Wine Festival at Bernalillo. What if, we thought, we rode the train downtown, went to the theater (just across the street), then rode back to our cars near home?

It worked like a charm. Though filled to standing-room-only for the festival, the train was still comfortable and efficient — and free (until October 13). We probably saved no more than a gallon of gas, but — as we learned from Al Gore — it all helps.

And it was fun.

Go see the film even if you can’t take a train!

Update: New Mexico’s train is called Rail Runner — that’s supposedly a roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) painted on the engine (photo above). But you know, it looks a little like a fighting cock to me. Do you suppose that’s why Governor Richardson hasn’t come out in opposition to cock fighting in New Mexico?

Turn on the lights, the summer’s over

Here in Albuquerque we have two minutes less daylight each day now in our headlong rush for the equinox in three weeks (September 22). It’s more than three minutes less light in Portland, Oregon, today than yesterday; a minute-and-a-half less in Miami; about two minutes, 20 seconds, less each day in Louisville.

Oh, and in Fairbanks, there’s six minutes, 44 seconds, less daylight today than yesterday.

Smarter than the average bear

All this took place Monday morning about 5-6 miles from Casa NewMexiKen.

For a 350-pound black bear with a penchant for appearing on human turf, he’s “been a pretty good bear.”

But Monday marks the second time he’s been captured out of the wild, and the state has a “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” policy for urban ursine intruders.

“It’s not a hard-and-fast rule,” said state Game and Fish Sgt. Chris Chadwick, adding that there’s a good chance the bear would escape the death sentence if captured again, because it’s been three years since his last public appearance.
…

“He heard a noise. The bear kind of yelled at my husband or made a noise to warn him,” said his wife, Laura Wall. “It scared him, and he just ran in the house.”

Authorities found the bear taking refuge a 40-foot-tall tree. It took four darts to tranquilize the bear, which fell onto an airbag set up to soften its landing. Usually one dart will do the job, Chadwick said.
…

By about 9 a.m., the crew had packed the bear into a waiting van. Nine hours later, the bear was released into the Jemez wilderness.

The Albuquerque Tribune